Take Me To Church
by Little Wo
Summary: Graves was not just Grindelwald's prisoner. Their contact was... closer. Because Grindelwald knows ways of being very convincing.
1. Chapter 1

_**The text was not beta read by a native speaker, so I am the only one responsible for the language.**_

* * *

 **I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies**

My arm is twisted behind my back. My temple and my cheekbone are pressed flat against the table-top, and still hurt after the blow. I turn my head to have a look at him. It does not work really well, but I feel him move his hand from my wrist to my palm and entwine his fingers with mine. I smile. He should not know I feel pain.

Which means I do not.

He releases me. I stand upright after a while, waiting for some trick. My arm refuses to unbend, and I keep my hiss under my breath. I turn, make sure I smile, and go to him. There is no trick: I know I am going to be grabbed and hit, this time with my back and the back of my head against the wall. It is unpleasant but lets me feel him; and he happens to be away for so long that I cannot help it. I can press the bruises he leaves with my finger one more time and imagine his hands are there.

The blow is again harder than I have expected. He smiles back, sticking someting in my neck. I can feel my own heartbeat because of the pressure, but all I understand is that it has nothing to do with a wand. The thing is cold and unfriendly.

I can squint and probably even figure out what it is, but I do not want to. It is much dearer to look into his eyes, even though his appearance is changed. So I try to part my lips:

"What is that?"

"A sort of a weapon. Quite deadly at a close distance. Never mind."

I shake my head:

"That won't do."

He lets me go and steps away. I see the thing he is holding. A weird piece of metal with a barrel and a handle, I do not like it.

"Do you want it in a bad way?"

"Yes, please." I know he likes the way I toss my head.

He throws his weapon aside and takes off his wand, and it is my turn to admire his movements.

 _"Imperio."_

For Merlin's sake, how good it is... I cannot keep myself from sighing with relief: all the pain vanishes, and my body feels like flowing in warm water. But the mist in my head is not as thick as usual.

"You have three seconds to answer me. Now, three."

I look at his lips.

"Two."

I raise my eyes and say quietly with him:

"One."

I stay silent, and torturing me again is in his power. But he sees the way I look at him.

"Yes, I will tell you."

He grins, he is very close and whispers into my ear:

"Good."

There is still a light veil around my brain, but it does not... matter. He seems to have decided that I deserve to be rewarded; he kisses me; I feel as if something blows up inside my chest, and things seize to matter. This is the reason he does not make me scream in agony every time: _he knows another way to make me completely will-less._


	2. Chapter 2

**I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife**

He takes a roll of parchment, unrolls it and reads out mockingly: "Goldstein, Porpentina". I look at him attentively. He seems to find the name or the following text funny.

"Yes?"

"What should I know about her that is not mentioned here?"

"She has a thing for justice." I try to smile the way he does. "It is easier for her to break the secrecy and to make the Obliviators do extra work than to stay away from anything. If she is needed, she is likely to be found at the New Salem's meetings - street gatherings, I mean. She hopes to regain the Auror's post-"

"By which means?"

"By attracting attention."

"And what do you recommend to do with her, if she is a trouble?" He taps the roll on his palm, as if demonstrating his only way of treating women.

"If she is too active, it could be effective to remind her what her last attempt ended with."

He frowns discontentedly and points at me with the roll, and I am lucky it is not his wand:

"This is what I am trying to draw from you. What was it?"

I swallow and try to smile:

"As I say, she lost her position. It is not necessary to tell her the details, she herself knows them; something neutral would be enough, like, _Should I remind you of the last time you tried to do something?_ "

He weighs my answer, and his squint promises nothing good, but the roll's end is not pointed at my chest anymore. He unrolls the parchment once more, looks through the text, and then asks indifferently:

"Isn't Miss Goldstein Jewish, by chance?"

"Is that not mentioned there?" I do not remember anything like that, honestly.

"No. Such information is left out of all your dossiers. I personally would not ingore it," he chuckles at something unpleasantly, "but fell free not to consider it a call for action."

He falls silent, and I allow myself to relax and just watch him. I think I know why watching is not the only thing I want, but he must not be bothered while he is doing something. He has already let me know **what** he would do to me if I bothered him, and he never tells twice. Well, I have learned to control myself.

He turns his eyes to me. They are so very promising, his eyes, but they would hardly promise things for free. And I do guess.

"And now," his smile is as sharp as a knife, "tell me something else. About that boy."


	3. Chapter 3

**Offer me my deathless death**

 _I awake in a room that seems familiar to me. All my five senses, if not more, tell me the same thing: I feel extremely helpless and nasty. My heart feels so heavy that I seem pressed against the bed. I do not want to move. Never. Ever._

 _My memory does not work, afraid of things it can reveal. What have I been doing? Why am I so sure I have betrayed... someone?_

 _I have no idea how much time I spend lying like that. Maybe I fall asleep again. My houself appears in the room and starts putting something on the table, cleaning, clattering..._

 _I am shaking with disgust, feeling very cold for some reason._

 _"Does Master feel bad?" Damn, her voice is so squeaky that my head is splitting into pieces._

 _"Go away," that is all I manage to caw._

 _She disappears. It seems that there is_ _a tray with some food on the table. All I would possibly want to do with it is throwing it against the wall. But I would have to stand up to do that, and I do not have strength._

 _It is unbelievable that there can be such bad feelings._

 _Someone enters the room. I do not want to know who he is, what he says or why he shakes me by shoulder. I huddle up and try to push his hand away, but it is impossible. He makes me sit on the bed, although I still keep my eyes closed, and he is the one to decide when to leave, and when to come back, and what to force into my hand, unclenching my fist and then bending my fingers again to make them hold the handle._

 _"Drink."_

 _I do not react, and his voice becomes more harsh:_

 _"Drink, or I will make you."_

 _A mother-of-pearl smell from the goblet reminds me of everything I treasure and gives me strength. I_ _breathe it in deeply, touch the liquid with my lips, swallow a bit, and then drink it all..._

 _Something melts inside me._

The potion takes away all my pain and loneliness, like a bezoar soaks up poison. He sits down next to me and holds my shoulders, and I am alive again. I feel drawn to him, he allows me to get closer, my hands tremble, and I do not understand how I could feel so bad. I try to tell this to him, but I can only whimper. He holds me and says calmly that it is all right. I know he cannot be mistaken.

It is already so right that I would not hesitate to die this very moment - if _he_ told me to die for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**...oh good God...**

Credence didn't sleep. The day had brought him too much, and it was not even about beating.

He didn't even understand what it was about.

Mr. Graves had always been unusually kind to him, unlike the rest of the world, but... to trust? Him, Credence?

 _"You- you're different."_

And the things that were not quite said: the voice, the intonations... Remembering the way another man's hands had touched his neck made him shiver.

Credence bit his lip and tried to calm his breath. If his thoughts were sinful, God knew it, but it was not necessary to give himself away to anyone who could tell Mary Lou.

He put his palm on his neck. His own fingers felt differently, like a soft echo, but it was still very unusual. And with his own hands he could do everything Mr. Graves had not done.

 _And imagine_ _he does._

Credence got the thought off his head. He couldn't think like that.

He could think of nothing at all, and just run his fingers very slowly over his skin, his neck, his veins, his clavicles... It was so simple.

He touched his chewed lip and then licked it. Kisses were a sinful thing, too,

 _and pleasant indeed they should be to make people prefer to sin._

Why pleasant? It could just seem so. He knew that people were surrounded by demons that tried to tempt them into choosing what seemed right but was actually wrong.

He tried to imagine that his hand was being directed by a demon. The picture didn't convince him.

And Mr. Graves? He was an adult and knew right from wrong, but behaved so unlike Mary Lou and aimed Credence to something completely different from what she did. Those two would never agree. And what was better, in God's opinion? If someone could diverge so much or even...

 _or even to slide his fingers down his chest, down, down, his heart is thumping so loudly, to touch the tips of his ribs, his skin is awfully sensitive._

His palm covers his ribs, his breath rises them a little.

And then he nearly jumps on his bed and presses his hand to his face, and bites a knuckle, because he has just understood what it could lead to. And that he _seems to_ really want it.

His teeth sink into his skin, but the pain does not really distract him, and he can't make himself bleed because you always get the worst for the unneeded marks. And it is really easier to sin now and be rightfully punished afterwards than to have your back whipped the following morning for something you haven't done.

 _It is easier to do that._

His hand is trembling, and it is harder to pretend that his breath is calm. He has never done it before, and he can't decide.

He feels ashamed of himself and closes his eyes.

He can not think but just move his fingers, and his palm, and again; his skin is warm.

He clenches his teeth, feeling hot and nervous; he can't give himself away. Even if he likes it.

 _Good Lord, can it ever be real._

He curls up and presses his forehead into the thin pillow. His ears are ringing with the emptiness of the room.

He doesn't think who these hands could belong to. They are his own, and the- the body is his own, too. This is him. He should be lying humbly under his blanket and sleeping, preferably dreaming about something as dull as his life. The muscles of his stomach strain, and his lip is bleeding.

He can't even think of a moan. All he can do is to squirm and to stare into space, not really seeing what is before him.

He is alone, even in his mind, and that is good. Had he been unable to control his mind, he would have met the other side of the funeral service long ago. This is the deepest thing Mary Lou beat into him with his own belt: _he could not love anyone but her._


	5. Chapter 5

**...let me give you my life.**

...No one blamed him. He was rather pitied. To become a dark wizard's prisoner, and to spend so much time under the Imperius curse! _And under something else as well,_ as people gossiped behind his back. And not to be able to use his magic powers. And to tell other people's secrets, not even understanding whether they were friends or foes. No wonder that, possessing such a "tool", Grindelwald had not bothered to look for other sources of information.

He was given a leave quicker than usual and recommended not to hurry to load himself with work again. He could only wonder at the way he was provided with "holidays" and anything it required.

He did wonder what it was for. He should have better be sent somewhere to die quickly at the performance. He would even prefer to have been killed by Grindelwald, really.

Percival liked to think it would have happened that way, had the wizard not run into unforeseen circumstances. Who had stopped him, again?

But that was not interesting.

In the hospital they rid him of the rest of Imperuis and even obliviated him mercifully, so that he was not going to recall who he had betrayed and how he had interacted with his... abuser. Maybe that was the obliviation that made Percival doubt he had ever been in captivity. It seemed that he had just fallen somewhere, and then returned to see that everyone was disappointed.

Graves did not even hope to ever feel alive again. There was no way back to his former level, anyway. But he did regret one thing.

Credence. The boy with such a trusting name, the one he wanted to save, the one he could sacrifice anything for. Nobody knew what became of him, except for the fact that he was no longer in New York.

 _Give. Me. Back. My. Credence._ (With the capital letter or not, he did not care.) That was all he really needed.

Credence would not mind that, either.


End file.
